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PriceZombie is shutting down

pricezombie.com

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Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#101

Post by CaptSpify »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #25
Etheryte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point here is not that they're relying on a third party, but the fact that Amazon banned them from the api while their competitors/alternatives can still use it without constraint.

Isn't that a bit like complaining to the police officer who pulled you over that other people were speeding, too?

As far as I understand it, this is different because they were "previously told we were in 100% compliance with the rules"

So, it's more like a cop pulling you over even though you weren't speeding.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#102

Post by johnward »

johnward wrote: post #97
djsumdog wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that would have mattered here. They were generating revenue from the Affiliate API. Even if they made a scraper and used that for price data instead, they're still violating the TOS for the Affiliate program. It wouldn't matter how they go the data.

I don't remember, nor can I find, any reference to not using historical pricing data with amazon associates: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement... The specific section on pricing in the api doc ( https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/advertising/api/deta... ) seems to indicate historical pricing is allowed if you display the date with it: "(o) You will include a date/time stamp adjacent to…

Not that you actually have to break TOS. Amazon can shut down your access for no reason at all.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#103

Post by johnward »

Etheryte wrote: post #21
elbigbad wrote: post #8

This sucks, but unfortunately is something that is not unlikely to happen when one's whole service is hosted or relies on a third party API for its data. I recall something similar happening with a service that relied on the Google Maps API to draw coordinates or something. And Google pulled API access because the service was too similar to what Google Maps did with trip directions, or something. Unfortunately this i…

The point here is not that they're relying on a third party, but the fact that Amazon banned them from the api while their competitors/alternatives can still use it without constraint.

Amazon really has no obligation to provide equal access to everyone though. That's a risk of building on an API. They don't need a reason to cut you off.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#104

Post by kordless »

patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

> You should, as early as practical, identify an actual human inside the mothership and convince them to like you.

This presumes humans will retain abilities to manage such decisions, or can manage them at scale in the future. If a company relies on an API for revenue, the best strategy is to have a backup for that API and then a backup for the backup API. A hope-and-a-prayer email address may or may not help retain an existing business relationship, which frankly all depends on the circumstances. Sometimes even a president can't get a company to do something if it is against policy or contrary to revenue.

Assuming connections to people are sufficient to head off changes in business models is a fallacious argument steeped in the idea that VC was a good idea for your company. The VC lead model is the cause of these type of problems, not people who are expected to simultaneously work 20 hour days and still have a life - which is where real connections are formed and retained.

I would have told Dave to go fuck himself.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#105

Post by gdulli »

hvo wrote: post #46

Padmapper was forced to shut down too by Craigslist.When are we going to learn that this type of business model is unsustainable? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4149455

Yeah if you're just regurgitating someone else's data you haven't really created anything. You might leech some money off someone else's marketplace for a while but don't expect it to last.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#106

Post by rand1298 »

Amazon associates is corrupt and not worth your time or its existence. They will wait until day 29 of 30 then shut down your account (after they collect revenue) and find any reason to shut your account down. They have no obligation to state a reason in their email to you. It's a scheme at its finest, unless you are willing to settle for working 8 hours a day for 20 dollars a day capped.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#108

Post by ryanSrich »

patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

> "LISTEN UP. 80% of you are building on these platforms. If you do not have a direct line to God at their HQs you ARE NOT TREATING THIS LIKE A BUSINESS. You will %(#)%#0 fail. If you are working with one of these companies, and you are not on that bus, you are dead to me."

This is why 90% of Silicon Valley Healthcare startups are ephemeral. They can't sell to Hospitals and they won't pay attention to the "dinosaurs" that try to tell them otherwise. There are some industries that you can't "disrupt" unless you're going to play by it's rules.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#109

Post by x0x0 »

kordless wrote: post #104
patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

> You should, as early as practical, identify an actual human inside the mothership and convince them to like you. This presumes humans will retain abilities to manage such decisions, or can manage them at scale in the future. If a company relies on an API for revenue, the best strategy is to have a backup for that API and then a backup for the backup API. A hope-and-a-prayer email address may or may not help retain…

There is always a human that can make decisions and override policies. If you don't find one of these, get his or her contact, and take them out to dinner as often as possible you're a fool.

source: I worked for a company that had / was part of my job to talk to a dedicated adwords account manager. Even google has such a thing. They can ok stuff for you that virtually nobody else gets and, in the event it's later judged noncompliant with policy, forwarding that email chain makes things ok. It also ended up being part of my job to take him out drinking in sf.

Also, your api & backup api is dumb. There is no alternative to facebook. There is no serious alternative to adwords. There is no alternative to google search. For many things, there is virtually no other retailer on the internet that matters besides amazon. That's reality.

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